


How the Light Gets In

by mosylu



Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Angst, F/M, Rebelcaptain Secret Santa, Separations
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-12-30
Updated: 2019-05-11
Packaged: 2019-09-30 06:34:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 8,409
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17218790
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mosylu/pseuds/mosylu
Summary: One year after the Battle of Scarif, Rogue One is reformed for a mission.It's awkward.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Ivaylo](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ivaylo/gifts).



> Behold, my Secret Santa gift! Ivaylo asked for me to use "do not panic from the wound otherwise how can the light sneak inside you" . . . so of course I had to write angst, and multi-chaptered angst at that. I hope you like it!

"Erso," a voice called out. "Erso!"

Jyn paused and waited for Han Solo to catch up with her. He'd gone along with the Pathfinders on a mission or two, and she liked him, even if he had a habit of rushing in blindly where she would have at least taken the lay of the land first.

It helped that he crumpled like a cheap blaster when a short, ferocious brunette started yelling at him. Jyn exploited that mercilessly, even though she knew full well she wasn't the woman who'd installed that particular button.

"Hey," he said, jogging up. "So you got your orders?"

"Just heard about it, I - "

"Okay, good. Is this gonna be weird?"

She cocked her head at him. "Weird? Why would it be weird?"

He made a little finger gun at her. "Great, kid. Great sabacc face there. But really. You want me to step in? This is her worshipfulness's great idea. I can go a few rounds with her. Get you out of it. Say the word."

She took off down the corridor. Solo and his obnoxiously long legs caught up with her in a couple of strides. "It's just a mission. There's no reason in this galaxy it would be weird. Find your own excuse to pull the princess's pigtails and leave me out of it."

Solo put out his hand and caught her elbow. She twitched out of his grasp, scowling. He gaped down at her. "Erso," he said. "Have you gotten briefed yet?"

"No," she said, starting to walk again. "That's where I'm going."

He pursued her into the briefing room. "So you don't know who you're assigned with."

She went still. "Who I'm assigned with?"

Before Solo could answer, a small click caught her attention. She turned to see the man shifting out of the shadows, straightening up from his resting spot against one of the big glass maps, shifting his weight onto the cane in his left hand. The source of the clicking noise, she realized when it shifted again.

Her lips went numb. "Cassian," she said softly.

He nodded at her.

Something buzzed in her ears.

Solo muttered a curse under his breath.

* * *

In her quarters, packing her bags, Jyn cursed herself.

Cassian fucking Andor.

He'd _nodded_ at her.

A brief tilt of his head, no change in his expression. That was it. And while they'd been getting briefed on their mission, he'd stood there next to her without a word, hands clasped around the head of his cane. She might have been another one of the maps.

Her hand drifted up to her neck, but found only bare skin. She dropped it. She hadn't done that in awhile.

It didn't take a genius to work out why she was thinking of her mother's kyber crystal now. The last place she'd had it was Scarif, on the beach.

With Cassian.

She could still remember the last words he'd said to her - _Your father would be proud of you._ She could remember the way her face had pulled as she smiled at him, and he smiled back. The way he'd grabbed her hand, the sand grinding hard between their palms. The solid feel of his body as he'd held her, or she had held him, or both, as they waited for the end.

And this was where they were now? A blank-faced nod?

The days before Scarif were like a fever dream. They blurred together in her mind, a mad scramble from planet to planet, from deep trouble to certain doom.

The days after were a blur, too. Waking up to a dull grey ceiling and the beep of machines and the sour-milk taste of bacta in her mouth, and nobody but strange people and strange droids around her. More bacta, skin grafts, bone knits, drugs, and unfamiliar faces, and nobody would tell her what was going on.

She’d heard later that the Death Star plans had gone through their own adventure after leaving Scarif, but had ultimately ended up safe and sound in the hands of the Alliance. Shortly before she'd regained consciousness, the Death Star itself had been destroyed by a moisture farmer of all people, with the dust of his home planet not shaken off his boots.

But at the time, she only knew that she was transferred from the ground to a medical transport ship because they were bugging out of Yavin as fast as they possibly could.

Cassian had been taken to a different one, and Bodhi and Chirrut and Baze still different ones, the five of them scattered across the galaxy as the Rebellion fled the wrath of the Empire.

The heroes of Scarif.

The scraps, more like.

* * *

At the briefing, he’d said their transport was a modified Mu-class shuttle. The only one she found in the landing bay looked like a rich man's toy, shiny with gloss. When she got closer and squinted at the lines of new paint, though, she could see where they'd patched over the scars. She patted one of the patches fondly. "Me too, old girl," she murmured. "As long as we get the job done, hmmm?"

A knocking sound came from above. She craned her head back and squinted up at the windshield, where she could see a familiar profile and a hand raised in greeting. Smiling bigger now, she headed up the gangplank through the cargo area and into the cockpit. "Bodhi," she said.

He gave her a little smile over his shoulder as he continued checking his systems. “Jyn.”

She dropped her bag and settled into the co-pilot's chair. "You're the pilot?"

"I am," he said. "Like - old times. Isn't it?"

She'd seen him off and on, when they were briefly in the same places. He'd been through therapies and brain imaging, but the speech apraxia that was his scar from Bor Gullet was a tough thing to repair completely. He spoke with a lot of hesitations, and sometimes couldn't get words out at all. Most people thought he was a little absent minded or wasn't perfectly fluent in Basic. They missed the sharpness of his eyes.

"I didn't see you at the briefing," she said.

"I was late - getting in." He adjusted a setting. "Did you see Cassian?"

She rubbed her palm over the peeling fabric on the seat arm. "Yeah."

He lifted his head to peer at her. She avoided his eyes.

"How long has it - been since you saw him?"

She shifted in her seat. "Scarif."

Bodhi's eyes widened. "A year?"

She got up abruptly. "I'm going to check the supplies. Make sure we've got what we need." On her way out, she set her hand on his shoulder. He put his hand over it for a second, but let her pull away as she continued back toward the cargo area.

She was sorting through the med kit when she heard the uneven footsteps, the faint click of the cane. She went rigid, then made her hands keep moving. Bacta strips, painkillers, antibiotics, joint braces -

The steps stopped just behind her. Was he waiting for her to look up? She lost count of the bacta strips and started again.

"Jyn," he said finally.

"Cassian," she said, not looking away as she started packing everything back in the locker.

He didn't do anything so obvious as shuffling his feet or shifting his weight. She wished she could read minds.

She gave in first, securing the locker, pushing herself to her feet and propping her shoulder against the bulkhead.

The light was better here than in the briefing room. She drank him in, not missing the lines around his mouth and the set of his shoulders. He was leaning on his cane, but she couldn't tell if it was more heavily than usual, because she didn't know what was usual.

When you got down to it, they'd only spent about three weeks together, a year ago, and much of that circling each other like a pair of wary cats. Maybe she shouldn't be surprised that he felt like a stranger.

(Even if he hadn't felt like a stranger then.)

"You're a Pathfinder," he said finally. "How did that happen?"

She thought about being sarcastic - _well spotted, captain, what with the insignia and all_ \- but she shrugged and picked at her nails. "Commander Einstart came to the brig and offered me either transport to the nearest rock or enlistment. I chose enlistment."

His brows drew together. "Why were you in the brig?"

She laughed. She didn't mean to; it popped out. "You mean after I led a rogue suicide mission against orders?"

"That was reclassified as an Intelligence operation," he said calmly. "After the fact."

Yes; she knew that. All the soldiers who'd died on Scarif had the Amidala medal in their files. She'd delivered one to Melshi's family; foil over plastic and a flimsi certificate. Worth about as much as a smuggler's promise, in her opinion. But nice all the same.

She shrugged. "I landed in the brig after I sliced into a secure server aboard my transport. Apparently the Pathfinders decided that what they needed on their team was a slicer with authority issues who could hit people really hard."

He took that in, locking it securely behind his spy's eyes and his spy's face, and didn't say anything more.

She crossed her arms. "Is this all our merry band, then?"

"Mmmm."

"Right, I'll go secure my berth. You got a preference? Fore? Aft?"

"No," he said.

“Right,” she said, and left him.

* * *

The galley had a single tiny round booth around a table just about big enough for Cassian to set out his datapad and comm. How they were all going to fit into it at meals would be later's problem.

They’d be dropping in and out of hyperspace for three days. Just about long enough to get fully prepped.

Also just about long enough to get thoroughly on each other’s nerves.

The shuttle felt tiny around him. Ever since he'd been released from the med center ten months ago, he'd been assigned to analysis posts, sitting in cruisers or on planetside bases. He'd spent his time sifting through data feeds and assembling intelligence brought in by other agents as his body slowly healed from the beating it had taken on Scarif.

It was the longest he’d ever spent as himself.

It felt strange to be out in the field again. Stranger to be here without Kay.

Cassian shifted his shoulders and opened his datapad. Time to get reacquainted with Pardain Jemel, minor mob boss.

It was an old cover, one that had never been burned, and one he shrugged into and out of like a worn jacket. This was a milk run. In the old days, he would have done this with only Kay as backup.

But these weren't the old days. On this mission, he had Bodhi.

And Jyn.

He lifted his head to listen. A few thumps and clanks came from one of the closet-sized berths between the the galley and the cockpit. Tilting his head, he could just see Bodhi still working in the cockpit.

Assured that he wasn't going to be surprised, Cassian put his hand in his jacket. Fishing around an inside pocket, high up against his heart, he found what he was looking for.

They’d found it in his clothes, he’d been told when he finally regained enough consciousness to understand the med droid. “Kyber crystals are registered religious artifacts,” the Two-One-Bee had offered by way of explanation.

 _But it’s not mine,_ he’d thought, looking at the rough crystal with its leather strap sitting on the bedside table. The ends of the strap dangled free, charred and ragged.

“Shall I discard it, Captain? You have no religious affiliation registered.”

“No,” he’d snapped, and gasped at the spike of pain up his mangled spine. When the painkillers had kicked in, he’d stretched out his hand and scooped it off the table, holding it tightly. “No, I’ll keep it,” he said.

He’d returned it to the table eventually, and fell into the habit of checking for it whenever he woke up or returned after another bacta treatment or physical therapy or even when somebody dropped by. The hospital gown was severely lacking in pockets, and he didn’t want to put it around his neck. That wasn’t where it belonged.

He could have given it to Bodhi, the first time the other man had told him he saw Jyn every so often. He could have given it to Leia, who traveled to almost every base there was. He could even have given it to a Pathfinder. As rough and tumble as they were, they were resourceful types. Any one of them would have found a way to return it to her.

Too risky, he told himself. Anything could happen. He needed to be absolutely sure she got it back, and that meant putting it in her hands.

And now, twice in one day, he'd stood close enough to touch Jyn Erso. And where was the kyber crystal? Still shoved in his pocket.

“Idiot,” he muttered, and picked up the datapad, commanding himself to focus on the mission.


	2. Chapter 2

A day later, they landed on a backwater moon, not large enough or important enough to have much of an Imperial presence. Naturally, the black market flourished.

Bodhi stayed with the shuttle and monitored known Imperial channels while Cassian and Jyn went out into the city to find the small caf shop where they were supposed to meet their contact.

Cassian had changed into a long coat, almost a cape. His hair was slicked back and his beard and mustache trimmed to razor-edged precision. He didn't look much different than himself, in essentials, but still, she almost wouldn't have known it was him except that his steps were still a hair uneven, and he still used his cane. It had a more ornate topper on it, instead of the plain black grip. She narrowed her eyes at it, wondering what the change did to the weight and heft of it as a weapon.

He saw her looking at it and his eyes crinkled at the corners for a split second. Then he turned and strode out ahead of her with arrogance in the line of his cheekbones and self-assurance in the swirl of his coat, and people turned to look at him.

People never turned to look at Cassian. She'd noticed it on Jedha, the gift he had for sliding through a crowd like a wisp of smoke. They said the Jedi could do things like that, but she felt sure it wasn't anything to do with the Force. Just a way he had of holding his face and his shoulders.

But in this cover, under this name, he wanted to be seen.

It was unnerving, to tell the truth. Jyn might have started thinking thoughts like, who was the real Cassian, and had she ever known him at all. Except that she felt pretty sure the looming presence of the Death Star overhead stripped all the artifice away. Just because they’d been snatched out of death’s maw at the last second, she'd still seen the real man.

She ignored the mental voice that pointed out they'd been on the sands of Scarif long months ago, and that people could change in an instant.

Jyn herself was all in black, with several weapons so poorly concealed that their presence was trumpeted louder than if she'd been wearing the knives and the blaster all out in the open. Cassian had insisted, and she'd given in with bad grace.

She did have a telescoping baton tucked in her sleeve and a knife at her ankle, both much better hidden. And if all else failed, she was holding the money. It was amazing what a good solid sack of credits could do when applied with enough force to someone's soft-and-squishies.

They were just getting settled in to the back room of the caf shop when a stocky man came through the doors, his face blank and impersonal as he pulled out a hand-held scanner and swung it around. He nodded at Cassian, and glanced at Jyn. She met his eyes, an acknowledgement between two people who both understood that they might have to shoot each other soon if this went south, but it wasn't personal.

_Lie,_ she thought. If he tried to hurt Cassian, she was going to take it really incredibly personally.

She set her jaw and and looked around as the stocky man finished his scan, turned off his machine, and murmured something into his comm.

She'd read the mission packet three times, trying to figure out what made this such a dangerous mission that they'd had to pull her in. It sounded pretty basic to her. She'd done a job for a week or so as hired muscle, a few years back. Mostly it had involved standing around looking like you were ready to gut someone at the flick of a fingernail. She could do that.

After a moment, a tall, lanky Dambrian man came through the door, his arms wide and his multi-faceted eyes bright. "Pardain, my old friend."

A bright smile, good enough to be mistaken for the real thing, spread across Cassian's face. "Howbinish, it's been too long." He embraced Tuller Howbinish and Jyn felt herself go tense across the shoulders. But she felt sure that Cassian never would have allowed himself to be touched if he thought the crime boss was going to slide a vibroblade between his ribs, so she stayed where she was, hands folded at her waist.

"But what's this?" Howbinish asked, gesturing to the cane. "You're surely not injured."

"Ah," Cassian said, waving his hand as he took a seat. "I took a nasty fall last year and unfortunately, the doctors tell me some of the effects are permanent."

Howbinish pressed his hand to his midsection in a gesture of dismay. "If you’re in pain, you must permit one of my personal aura-manipulators to have a look at you. I promise, they’ve done wonders even for humans."

"Oh, it's not so bad," Cassian said. "And I have another engagement in this sector, or I would certainly take up on your generous offer."

Jyn fought to keep her face blank. Was that part of the cover? She'd thought this was the only place they were going.

She listened to the two men barter - not the actual words, which were a whole lot of hot air, lots of "my old friend" and "when have I ever done you wrong." Instead, she monitored the tones of it, listening for tension or veiled threats. But their voices rose and fell with no knives underneath, just two businessmen doing business.

She kept an eye on Cassian's shoulders and the back of his neck, almost whipping out her blaster when she misread a wince. But he'd just been shifting his weight in the chair.

Somewhere among all the pleasantries and the endless cups of dark, thick caf, and the parading plates of pastries, a deal was struck. Datapads came out - Jyn realized just in time that she was meant to hand Cassian the one she carried - and exchanges were made. Agreements were struck on dates and times, and quality of merchandise, and then more hot air about their long and fruitful relationship and how long it was since they'd gotten to visit like this.

They sat and talked for another half an hour, while she did her level best not to fidget. At last, the meeting meandered to its end, and all that Jyn had done for the past few hours was stand there and look hard.

* * *

Cassian didn't talk on the way back. He sat with his hands folded over his cane, looking out the window. Back at the spaceport, he dissolved in the direction of his berth. She made her way to the cockpit.

In the pilot's chair, Bodhi was still listening to Imperial channels and doing some kind of wire-and-bead puzzle. Maybe it was supposed to be doing something good for his neural pathways, or maybe just keeping him from falling asleep. He looked up as she flopped into the co-pilot's chair. "How did it - go?" he asked.

"Fine," she said. "Smooth as butter." Her frown increased. "I was downright bored."

"That's good," he said. "Isn't it?"

"I suppose," she muttered.

"You're too used - to rampaging in, grenades flying. Intelligence - missions are different." But his eyebrows knotted up as he looked back at the puzzle in his hands. Clearly, he didn’t know why they were here either.

She stared out the windshield at the horizon. The sun was setting, spilling red and pink and orange, luridly beautiful, across the sky.

Her frown deepened.

* * *

Jyn's boots thudded on the floor, and Cassian looked up to see her storm into the galley, still in the unrelieved black of her bodyguard cover. "What the _kriff_ was that?"

"A very successful mission," he said, tapping his datapad to save his report. He'd transmit it before they jumped to hyperspace. He’d shed Pardain Jemel, packing him away into a bag. Normally, he didn't come himself for exchanges like this. After the initial establishment of the trade relationship, Jemel was mostly virtual, a series of messages through backchannels, trading one thing for another and that for yet another. In the odd alchemy of the black market, it all eventually transformed into much-needed boots, blasters, and bacta.

Howbinish, for his part, was happy with the rare items from contested areas of the galaxy, and if it ever crossed his mind that he was supplying the Rebellion, he'd never let on. They'd rubbed along together nicely for years. A few botched deals, done by other agents while he'd been in medical, had put them on shakier ground lately, though. It hadn't taken much to convince Draven that the relationship needed a little booster in the form of a personal visit.

"You could have done this in your sleep," Jyn said. "You didn't need me."

"Or - me," Bodhi said, coming up behind her. "I've seen you - piloting." He waved a hand around them. "You could have flown this - bird just fine."

"The medics haven't cleared me to go on my own," he said. "I have to take backup." He'd never been on his own, not really, but they always meant _organic_ when they said backup.

Jyn jammed her hands on her hips and glowered down at him. "So," she said. "Take backup. Take some wet-behind-the-ears baby agent. There's scads of them now, all fired up to take down the evil Empire themselves since they saw the footage of Alderaan getting blown to bits. Why would the princess send us with you?"

"Because she was doing me a favor," he said.

Jyn blew out a breath through her nose. "That is not an answer."

Well.

Here they were, then.

If he was wise, he would have done this before. In transit, at the base, at the briefing. Before the briefing. If he was wise, he would have gone to see both of them, together or separately, and asked this as a friend. But he hadn't.

He leaned back to look at both of them, ignoring the twinge low in his back. "I didn't want some baby agent. I wanted you. Both of you."

"Why?" Bodhi said, annoyance pulsing beneath his words. Even _Bodhi_ was exasperated with him.

He looked down at the datapad, pushing his finger up along the frame and down again. "There's a stop I want to make along the way back."

Jyn's eyes narrowed at him. "That wasn't in the briefing."

"No. It's not an official mission."

She blinked and the militant line of her jaw softened. "Well, fine then." She scowled again. "But what's so important and yet so secret that you've got to such lengths to get us involved? Pull me out of my squad, pull Bodhi off his routes - "

Bodhi straightened up, eyes widening. He'd gotten it. "Jyn," he said.

"And you didn't even ask us, you made the princess do it like some kind of - "

"Jyn," Bodhi said again, and she said, " _what_ " and Bodhi said, "Not what, who."

Jyn's whole face went still and she looked back at Cassian. "Wait. You mean we're going after -"

"Kay," Cassian said. "We're getting Kay back."


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> IT WAKES
> 
> Sorry for the extended silence. I hope that I've gotten past the difficult part and can update more quickly from now on. Anyway enjoy this chapter at least.

Of course, Kay was so much slag in the melted heap of Scarif's data tower, and had been for a year. But - 

"He backed himself up before every mission," Cassian said. "Including the one to Scarif. So he's there. Or at least, his backup file is."

Waiting, Jyn thought. Waiting for Cassian.

(She knew what that felt like.)

"Do you - have a chassis waiting?" Bodhi wanted to know.

Cassian shook his head. "I can get one. Probably. The important part right now is retrieving his backup."

"Wait," Jyn said. "Didn't they EMP the base during the evacuation?"

"It's protocol, yes," Cassian said. "That would have destroyed any data easily accessible. But Yavin was our main base and it housed the rebellion's primary data archive."

She raised her brows. "All in one place? Were they mad or just idiots?"

"Draven didn't like it either. It's much more distributed now."

Jyn scowled. She didn't like having anything in common with that paranoid tightass.

Cassian continued, "The data centers had heavier shielding, and too much information for the brass to willingly let that get destroyed. They didn't have the time to move anything but the most critical data off-planet."

She snorted. "And they've just let it sit there all this time for the Empire to dig around in at will?"

"It's not just sitting there," Cassian said. "It was all encoded and then locked down, firewalls, viral defenses, anything they could think of."

Well, all right. That was something, at least. "They never came back for it?"

"The Empire's been all over - Yavin since we - evacuated," Bodhi siad. "I was in the third evac wave. I saw the - number of Star Destroyers descending as - we burned out of there."

Cassian nodded. "There were a few missions before this," he said. "Stealth jobs, getting a few data packets each time, but Intelligence has decided it's too risky. Draws too much attention. They're going to let the timer run out."

"What timer?" Bodhi asked.

It was Jyn who answered. "Self-destruct protocol. Let it sit long enough without anyone logging in with the proper passwords, or try to log in too many times with the wrong ones, and everything goes poof." She flared her fingers in mini-explosions. "All you've got is lots of scrambled binary. Standard for big corps and Imperial data centers. The bigger the data center, the more of a mess it is." She cocked her head. "How big are they?"

"Big," Cassian said briefly.

She eyed him. "And why do you need me and Bodes to help you pull Kay's backup out? Don't you have the passwords?"

He squared his 'pad so it was flush to the edge of the table. "Not so much."

Bodhi widened his eyes at Jyn. She crossed her arms and sucked her teeth. 

Cassian squared the 'pad again. "As I said, Intelligence has decided that it's too risky. And on the previous missions, there were higher-priority targets than a droid's backup."

"So when you - said this wasn't an official mission, you didn't - mean it was a covert op."

"Is that why you needed us?" Jyn said. "You know we don't mind going rogue?"

He folded his hands over the pad and looked at them very steadily. "You don't have to come. This is your choice."

Jyn suddenly remembered the first time they'd set off on a mission together. That expedition to Jedha, where he'd stood over her with his hand out, trying to get his purloined blaster back.

He'd looked like this then, stern and forbidding. At that time, she'd set her jaw and stared him down, hands wrapped around the blaster in her lap. He’d turned away, coldly exasperated.

Bodhi said, "Of - course we're coming."

She also remembered how he'd looked in the data tower at Scarif, hearing the door clang shut between him and his dying friend.

And how he'd looked just now, saying,  _ I didn't want some baby agent. I wanted you. _

Something angry and hard in her said,  _ Yes, well, he wants you with him when you're useful. Where's he been all this time? _

"Jyn," Bodhi prompted, and she realized that a minute had passed, maybe more. 

Cassian's expresion hadn't changed, but his hands fidgeted ever so slightly, his pinky worrying at the corner of the datapad.

She said, "What kind of Imp presence are we looking at on the surface, then?"

His shoulders softened. He picked up the 'pad and tapped the screen. "I pulled the last mission report. The intel's about five weeks old so we'll still need to do some recon as we approach."

Jyn listened, calculating what she'd need in terms of datapads and slicing programs and weaponry.

_ So, _ her hard, angry place said.  _ Back to Yavin then. _

* * *

_ One year ago _

The whoop-whoop of sirens dragged Jyn out of sleep. "Whuh," she slurred. "Stop. Sleep'n."

The Two-One-Bee bustling around her bed said, "You may return to sleep when you are aboard." He swapped out a line to a machine to a portable version, taped something down, unhooked something else. "I've administered a mild stimulant to assist you in rousing enough to board the ship."

"Sh'p," she said. "Wha'sh'p." She frowned and the fog in her head began to clear, very slowly. "Wha's happ'ning?"

"Medical has priority in the evacuation. We are leaving."

"Ev - " She frowned harder. This was too many syllables all at once. "Evacuation?"  


"The base is being evacuated," Two-One-Bee said patiently. "The Empire is on its way. Medical has priority."

"Where - " She coughed as her dry, burned-out throat protested all this use, and it jolted her shattered ribs and shredded side. Pain took the place of the fog, a trade Jyn didn't much appreciate. "Kriff," she croaked as it crawled up her side and chewed at the grafted skin over her healing ribs. "Ow. Fuck a Hutt."

The droid gave her water from a squeeze bottle. It trickled comfortingly down her throat. "Do you know where you are?" he asked briskly, as if ticking off a box on some mental checklist.  


"Yavin," she said. "The Death Star. It's. It's dead." And the Empire was coming. Well, that made sense. 

"You were informed of the evacuation. Do you remember that?"

She wracked her foggy brain a moment and gave up. "Got more drugs in me than a Hutt's cargo bay," she mumbled. "No. Where are we going?"

Two-One-Bee said, "Undetermined."

"Is Cassian going too?"

"The entire medical wing is being evacuated first."

"Is he awake?"

Two-One-Bee didn't respond, as he hadn't responded all the other times she'd asked. At least she knew he was alive, she told herself as the droid finished prepping her to be moved. At least she knew that much.

She was shifted into a floating chair. "I can walk," she protested. 

"This is protocol," he said. 

"But - "

"This is protocol." Two-One-Bee steered her toward a stream of other patients in similar chairs and herded them all along. Jyn scowled at the bumpy stone hallways they passed through, unwilling to admit even to herself that she probably would have faceplanted if she'd tried to walk.

Soldiers rushed past them, talking loudly about the sirens and the Imperial advance guard and the X-wings intercepting the larger debris from the Death Star. Sirens whooped every so often, drowning them out briefly. Her concussed head ached with it.

They came out into one of the big hangers, with shuttles that would go up to the cruisers in orbit. This was even more chaotic. Shuttles taking off with blasts from the engines, shuttles swooping in to land and take their next load. Ground crew running this way and that. Droids whirred around, occasionally jouncing and bouncing on the stone floor.

"This way," Two-One-Bee said, steering them off to the left

She spotted another line of patients, guarded by another Two-One-Bee. They weren't in chairs, but floating stretchers instead. Still sedated, or comatose, their injuries much more severe. She saw places where limbs were supposed to be, still not yet healed enough to attach a prosthetic. Skin burned much more severely than hers had been, bacta gel thickly coating raw flesh. Her stomach lurched.

She scanned the line of stretchers until she saw a familiar shock of dark hair.

"Cassian," she croaked. "Cassian!"

Tubes and wires and plastic wrapped around him in a cocoon. Or a coffin. He looked small and fragile inside it, too pale, his face slack. For a split second, she wondered where Kay was, before she remembered, the memory like a punch in the stomach.

She pushed at the arm of her chair, trying to change its direction. But it didn't respond. She tilted toward the Two-One-Bee that had the charge of her. "My chair's not working."

"It is under my control. Please settle down. You will fall." The droid gestured, and the line of chairs swung towards a shuttle. Not the one the stretchers were being loaded onto.

"Where are we going?" she said. "We're going to the wrong ship."

"No we are not. You are assigned to the  _ Indefatigable. _ "

She pointed. "I need to get on that one!"

"That shuttle is removing patients to the  _ Stalwart _ , which is reserved for priority-one critical cases. You are not priority-one. You must board the - "

"No, I don't, I need to board  _ that _ ship." She fumbled with the restraints, her fingers clumsy, but finally they clicked open.

"Jyn Erso, please replace your restraints or I will be forced to administer a sedative. You must board this shuttle, not that one."

"No, I don't - " She pushed his hands away and tried to climb out of the chair. One of his hands clamped around her upper arm, and she yanked hard.

Pain flared up her arm and down her side, and she felt the telltale pop of repaired skin parting again. She let out a yelp, but kept struggling. "I - need - "

The droid made a noise like an exasperated sigh. "You were warned, Jyn Erso," he said almost sorrowfully, and too late she felt the sting of a hypo against her neck. "I am obliged to sedate you now."

The sedative poured through her veins like an ice-cold flood, filling her limbs with cement and fogging her brain. "Nuh," she mumbled through suddenly thick lips. "I - need - I need -" Something hot and thick began to trickle down her screaming side.

"What's going on?" someone official-sounding asked.

"This patient was being uncooperative, Doctor. I have administered a sedative but I fear she has re-injured herself."

Her vision blurred, and her muscles felt like noodles, so she couldn’t push away the hands that prodded and poked at her bleeding side. But she strained her eyes to watch Cassian's stretcher go up the gangplank until it disappeared into the depths of the other shuttle. 

Then everything went dark. 

She didn't wake up until the  _ Indefatigable _ was several hundred light years away from Yavin, and Cassian was even farther away.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm going with the fanon that Space!Spanish is basically the language of the Alderaan-colonized worlds, including Fest.

They dropped out of hyperspace a little ways out from Yavin. Through the viewscreen, she could see the fat red planet, glaring at them with its moons all dancing nervous attendance. 

Scattered among the moons, there was a field of debris. For a moment, she was confused. - were they passing through a comet’s path?

But then she realized. It was the remains of the Death Star.

The great mass of the planet would gather it up in time, the scattered remnants of her father’s creation plunging down through the planet’s various gas layers and eventually burying themselves in liquid or solid layers in the interior. Or the moons would attract them, the larger chunks perhaps leaving craters and scars on the surface, the smaller just momentary streaks of light in the skies.

But it had only been a year, and for now, the dismembered corpse of the Death Star was sprawled throughout the moons of Yavin.

Bodhi was talking to Cassian about them. “- bouncing the - signal all over,” he was saying. “Interference.”

“Yes,” Cassian said, putting his hand on Bodhi’s shoulder. “Good. It will hide us too. Can we shelter in any of it for a time?”

Bodhi twisted up his mouth, looking doubtful, and said, “I’ll look around for big - enough pieces.”

Unneeded, she got up and headed back to the galley to check the datapads. 

They’d sent Bodhi out to the market before leaving Clain. Jyn would have preferred to go herself, but Cassian was unwilling for any of Howbinish's people to spot Jemel’s bodyguard on her own, buying extra datapads and blaster clips and sensor-fuddling jackets. Jyn grumbled, and sent Bodhi with a list so comprehensive that he’d given her a long-suffering look. “I know - how to buy - tech, Jyn.”

She'd wrinkled her nose at him and said, “Cables, too.”

She was checking through one of the 'pads when the familiar uneven steps alerted her to Cassian's presence. He wasn't using his cane today. 

She glanced up. "Any pops yet?"

"There's still an Imperial presence on and around the moon," he said, sliding into the other side of the circular booth. "The data center isn't attracting any particular attention, it seems. Mostly they're focused on the temples."

She grunted. Not that she'd never infiltrated a heavy Imperial settlement with the Pathfinders, but she'd rather not if she didn't need to.

He scratched at a leftover splatter of food on the table, and when she looked at his hands, reached out and picked up the datapad closest to him. "These are good," he said. 

"Yeah, Bodhi found a good dealer. I've just  been checking them for keyloggers and scambots."

"Find any?"

She nodded at the one he held. "Found a lovely sneaky one on that. I was so impressed I copied the code before I wiped it clean."

"You think you'll need it?"

She shrugged. "You think you'll really need every bit of information you gather up in your spying?"

He acknowledged the hit with a half-smile. 

"Anyway, it was a nice program. I would have loved to have had it when I was running the same scam."

"That wasn't in your file," he said. 

She raised her brows at him. "Didn't get caught, did I?" 

His mouth quirked up again. Twice in five minutes. Or maybe it had been a trick of the light, because the next moment it was gone and he was studying the pad in his hands with his brows drawn together.

She returned to her project. "What happens to them after this?"

"Mmm? They were bought with Alliance cash. We'll have to turn them into the Quartermaster."

"All of them?" She tilted the pad towards herself. "Couldn't I just keep one?"

"You think you'll need it?" he said again.

After a long moment, she shrugged. "Never know, do you?"

Silence fell between them again, draping itself over the scatter of 'pads and cables and the question she wanted to ask but couldn't find the words for.

She finished with the 'pad she held and shut it down to preserve the battery. "How far in are we going?" The data center was housed in a natural cave network about a quarter of the way around the moon from the temples and deep enough to hide itself from the Imperial sensors. A flash of memory crossed her mind -  _ hiding in the dark, weeping, cold and hungry and wanting her mama who was lying dead in a field - _ and she gritted her teeth against it.

If he noticed her grimace, he didn't let on. "Not far. The patrols might not be focused on that area, but they're still regular enough I want to make this fast."

"Smash-and-grab, then?" she asked. "Where is he stored?" Maybe they would get lucky and Kay's backup would be in a folder, clearly labeled GROUCHY DROID HERE, in the top levels of the file structure.

"All over," he said. "After he created the backup, he broke it into several pieces." He quirked his brows at her. "In case of a smash-and-grab."

Right. Because nothing could be easy. "How many pieces?"

"Thirty-seven."

"Thirty-seven," she echoed. "Overkill, a little?"

"It's Alliance protocol for Intelligence data assets," he said, his voice rather flat. She wondered what he thought of his friend being considered an asset, like a ship or a datapad. Or was that just the way Intelligence referred to everyone under their umbrella, organic or electronic? 

"What happens if you don't get all the pieces?" she asked.

"Depending on what's missing, I could still reinstall him," Cassian said. "But there would be things gone. Memories, or subroutines that govern movement, or - " He made a restless movement with his hands. "I don't know. Hard to say. Like a brain injury."

She thought of Bodhi, who had been lucky, comparatively speaking. "So," she said. "We'll get all the pieces then."

His mouth curved up. "Here," he said, fishing in the inner pocket of his vest, pulling out a thin data card, and sliding it into the slot on the side of the 'pad. "Map of the caverns."

She scooted over and scowled down at it. "I'm guessing Bodhi's not going to call attention to it by dropping us right on top." The terrain looked hilly, she noted. Nothing she couldn't handle, of course, but she didn't know about Cassian. 

Of course, he'd done all right on Eadu. On the other hand, on Eadu he hadn't yet fallen down a data tower, clawed his way back up, nearly gotten annihilated by the Death Star, and been knocked around the interior of an escaping shuttle like a marble in a jar. 

She said, "Cassian, d'you - "

From the door, Bodhi said, "Oh, sorry, I'll - "

They both looked up, and Cassian said, "No, you should see this too. It's got the approach."

He blinked at them once or twice. "You're talking about  - the mission?"

"What else?" Jyn said.

". . . right," Bodhi said .

Jyn abruptly realized she was practically in Cassian's lap. She scooted away, as much as the tiny booth would allow, and he cleared his throat and pushed the data pad toward Bodhi, who kindly pretended that the last two minutes hadn't happened at all. 

They discussed the approach, and Cassian admitted that he would have a hard time with the terrain but refused to allow Bodhi to drop them closer. "So far, it seems the Imperials have no inkling there's a data center there. Let's keep it that way until the timer runs out on the self-destruct."

Bodhi went up front again to check his monitors and see if they had an opportunity to slip from one shielding piece of debris to another. Jyn scooted out of the booth and started toward her berth, intending to check all her weaponry in case they did have to throw down with some Imperial patrol.

Cassian, still in the booth, called out,  “Jyn."

She stopped and turned, expecting some last reminder or question about their plan.

Instead, he said, “Why did you stay with the Rebellion?”

It caught her flat-footed, and she felt her mouth open without the words for an answer. Why was he asking this now? A year later.

He waited for her answer, face smooth and uninformative.

She shut her mouth and shrugged. “Three squares and new boots,” she said, and turning on her heel, left the galley.

* * *

 

Cloaked and with all their sensors out, they shifted into orbit around the fourth moon the next day. Another half-day of monitoring found no signs of Imperial presence around the caves that housed the data center, or at least not more than most of the moon had. A brief rainburst gave Bodhi enough cover to land in a clearing barely large enough to deserve the name, pulling back into the trees as much as possible. He'd monitor the Imperial comm bands and let them know if everything was about to go to hell.

As Bodhi climbed around pulling underbrush over the shuttle's nose, Jyn scowled at the twisty, overgrown, very steep path and looked sideways at Cassian. He'd pulled his hood up and the edge of the fabric hid his expression. He had yet another cane, taller, more like a walking stick. She thought of Chirrut bashing hell out of the stormtroopers on Jedha.

A combination of higher elevation and lower latitude meant it was cooler and more temperate here than at the humid, jungle-choked temples that had been the base. She zipped her jacket of sensor-fuddling material up to her chin and pulled the hood up, and started down the path after Cassian.

Twenty minutes later, she was cursing the jacket under her breath, and cursing the Imperials that meant she had to wear it. The stupid stuff had all the breathability of a plastic tarp. She'd gone second to let him set the pace, but his pace was more brutal than she'd bargained for. She hitched her backpack up higher on her shoulders, feeling the pads inside shift and clunk against each other.

Sweat trickled down her temples, chilled by the wind that rustled the still-dripping trees. She welcomed it, but didn't like the soggy look of the path ahead. She was just about to call out for a break when something cracked and crashed and Cassian disappeared.

"Cassian!"  She lunged forward and almost crashed down a steeper bit of path herself. Sitting at the bottom was Cassian, looking thunderous but not visibly in pain.

She picked her way down, placing her boots carefully on the most secure-looking spots. "You okay?"

"Yes," he grunted. 

She put out her hand and he looked up at her a moment, still scowling. She couldn't tell if he was annoyed with himself for slipping or angry that she'd seen it. 

He sighed and reached up for her hand, but just as it closed around hers, Bodhi's voice said in her ear, "Guys - shuttle headed - your way, fast."

Cassian yanked her hand hard and she collapsed to her knees, instinctively scooting back into the underbrush and ducking her head so any sensors would catch the jacket and not her bare skin. He scooted with her, hooking his arm around her shoulders and ducking his head likewise. 

They rested there against each other, panting quietly into the space between them. She could feel the thud of his heartbeat against her upper arm. Too fast, even for the pace they'd been setting. It would be nice to pretend to herself that it was due to her proximity, but his breathing had a hint of a wheeze mixed in. He was pushing himself too hard. And he poured out heat like a furnace.

If he were just another Pathfinder, one that she knew was newly back in the field after a major injury, she would be telling him,  _ Slow down, idiot, you're going to hurt yourself.  _

But he wasn't another Pathfinder, he was  _ Cassian. _ And she didn't know how he was handling his change in physical mobility or endurance, and she hadn't the first clue how to ask.  


_Dammit,_ she thought. 

The Imperial shuttle hummed by overhead. Jyn listened for any slight change in sound that meant it was slowing, turning, dropping down for a better look. Maybe taking aim.

But it buzzed along steadily and soon faded from hearing. She lifted her head and saw only tree leaves and soggy grey clouds.

She began to shift up to her feet and his arm tightened around her shoulders. "Wait," he muttered.

Right. They might come back. And he needed another minute of rest.

She waited until the wheeze cleared from his breathing, and tapped her communicator. "Bodhi? We clear?"

"Yeah," Bodhi said, his voice echoing slightly as it sounded in Cassian's ear too. "He's about eighty - kilometers away now."

Cassian nodded, and his arm slid off her shoulders. She missed its weight.

She resettled her backpack and pushed herself or her feet. 

"I'll take lead," she said, bending down to pry his walking stick out of the mud where he'd dropped it when he first fell. "You're killing me. I've got the cargo, you know."

He took the stick and wiped the grip clean. His mouth had a slight twist to it as he took her hand again and braced the stick against the ground, using both to haul himself to his feet. "And I'm out of shape," he said once he was upright.

She eyed him. He wasn't collapsing in pain, but he hadn't done that on the beach at Scarif either. At least not until they reached the water's edge. "You good? Didn't twist anything?"

"Mi orgullo," he muttered. 

She didn't know any Alderaanian that could be repeated in polite company, but the self-deprecating tone needed no translation. The tension eased out of her shoulders. "How far now?"

"Another klick maybe."

She nodded and started picking her way down the path again, trying to strike a balance between too slow and not slow enough. He followed at the pace she set without complaint one way or the other.

Still, she was relieved to hear him say, "Here," about fifteen minutes later, even if she had to say, " _ Where? _ " when she looked around. As far as she could tell, they were in a patch of forest completely identical to that which they'd been hiking through since they left the shuttle.

He came around her and used the muddy tip of his walking stick to knock aside some overgrown bushes. And there it was, a hatch. Just. Sitting there. In the forest floor. With little bits of leaf litter and twigs and some dried-up last-season's berries scattered over the camo-patterned metal.

"Jyn," he said, and she looked up.

"Yeah?"

He frowned at her. "Are you all right?"

"Fine," she said sharply. "How deep is it?"  _ And is there a heartsick little girl at the bottom? _

"There's a bit of a climb down but there's a connection jack almost directly at the bottom. We're going to have to close the hatch after us."

They had flashlights. Big bright flashlights that could illuminate any number of caverns. No reason to think about a tiny light she'd had to hold in her small cupped hands.

"Fine," she said again. "let's go."


End file.
